Käthe Kollwitz (sculpture)

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Käthe Kollwitz on Kollwitzplatz in Berlin
Käthe Kollwitz in Magdeburg

The Käthe Kollwitz memorial is a bronze sculpture created by the sculptor Gustav Seitz between 1956–58 . It was built in 1961 in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg on Kollwitzplatz and honors the artist Käthe Kollwitz , who lived there from 1891 until her house was destroyed in the bombing war in 1943. (Location coordinates) coordinates: 52 ° 32 '11 "  N , 13 ° 25' 2.5"  O .

Execution Berlin

Soon after the death of Käthe Kollwitz, the Prenzlauer Berg city administration approached the sculptor Gustav Seitz to erect a memorial for her in the district. Seitz rejected this at the time and in 1949, in a letter to the Lord Mayor of East Berlin, Friedrich Ebert, suggested a granite version of the Kolliwtz plastic mother with two children for Kollwitzplatz. He justified this with: "In view of the simplicity of this great, unforgettable woman [...] [I] would like to urgently advise against having a conspicuous and sophisticated monument erected for her."

In 1950 the Prenzlauer Berg district office erected a copy of a mother with two children made by Fritz Diederich on the site of the former home of the Kollwitz family . From then on, wreaths were ceremoniously laid on the anniversary of Kollwitz's birth and death. In March 1956 the district office gave Gustav Seitz the order to create a Kollwitz memorial and on July 3, 1957 it was decided to erect it on Kollwitzplatz. In July 1957, the GDR's cultural funds again decided to create a Kollwitz memorial for Kollwitzplatz and commissioned Seitz to do so. At the same time, the cultural funds spread the rumor that the residents of Kollwitzplatz had suggested the erection of the monument when the wreath was laid for their 90th birthday.

Seitz finally developed the larger-than-life seated figure through drawings and small sculptural works. Like the poet François Villon and the playwright Bertolt Brecht , for whom he had worked out various figure heads since around 1948, he portrayed the artist as an unheroic, modern heroine. In August 1958, he had completed and handed over the plaster model . The draft was exhibited at the 1958 annual exhibition of the Academy of the Arts (East) and was then criticized in the SED organ New Germany . Kollwitz is portrayed as "blocky, heavy in itself" instead of working out its combative character. Accordingly, Seitz feared that the final execution of his design would be dispensed with. When he announced his upcoming move to Hamburg to the Kulturfonds der DDR, he made suggestions as to how the design could be saved for later use. But after an exhibition with designs for the Kollwitz memorial in the Prenzlauer Berg art cabinet in the spring of 1958, a memorial was expected in public, so his fears did not come true. The sculptor moved to Hamburg in autumn 1958. The bronze was cast and set up in the absence of the sculptor. The memorial was inaugurated on October 11, 1961 and then developed into the central memorial for the artist.

The larger than life, 2.15 meter high monument shows the artist as an old pensive woman, seated, with a large drawing folder at her side and a charcoal pencil in her hand resting in her lap. Seitz, who met Käthe Kollwitz as a professor during his studies at the Berlin-Charlottenburg Art Academy and, at the same time, had a work space in the Berlin studio community in Klosterstrasse, developed the sculpture from after the artist's last lithographic self-portrait from 1938 , the shows her as a 71-year-old, discriminated against by the National Socialist regime.

By quoting the artist, the sculptor brings the type she herself given to a new shape. Seitz creates a portrait in the spirit of the portrayed: a monument that strives for general validity and renounces official forms of representation - without any claim to romanticization and idealization.

In October 1999 a work board was attached to the sculpture , which gives the viewer information about the sculptor.

further explanation

Magdeburg 1988

In 1988, almost 20 years after Seitz's death, a new bronze cast was made for the Magdeburg Art Museum based on the original plaster model. This replica is now in the Magdeburg sculpture park west of the monastery of Our Dear Women in Magdeburg .

Trebnitz 2015

In 2015, in connection with the move of the Gustav Seitz Foundation from Hamburg to Müncheberg , Trebnitz district, another, smaller version of the sculpture was set up in public space, in front of the Trebnitz Castle Remise.

literature

  • Jens Semrau: "Considering the simplicity of this great, unforgettable woman." The Kollwitz memorial by Gustav Seitz. In: Kathleen Krenzlin (ed.): Käthe Kollwitz and Berlin. A search for clues. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-422-07424-8 , pp. 233–241.
  • Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne (Ed.): Gustav Seitz. A memorial for Käthe Kollwitz. Leaflet for the special exhibition of the same name (13.06. - 17.09.2017), 8 pages, Cologne 2017.
  • Gustav Seitz Foundation, Hamburg (ed.): The Käthe Kollwitz monument in Trebnitz, by Bernd Schälicke. Leaflet, 10 pages, Hamburg 2015.
  • Andreas Hornemann: From so far to here, QuadratArtVerlag Magdeburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-935971-53-9 , No. 8.

Web links

Commons : Käthe Kollwitz von Gustav Seitz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ quoted from Jens Semrau: “In view of the simplicity of this great, unforgettable woman.” The Kollwitz memorial by Gustav Seitz. In: Kathleen Krenzlin (ed.): Käthe Kollwitz and Berlin. A search for clues. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-422-07424-8 , pp. 233–241, here 233.
  2. ↑ a b Yvonne Schymura: Käthe Kollwitz 1867-2000. Biography and reception history of a German artist . Klartext, Essen 2014, ISBN 3-8375-1035-2 , p. 342 .
  3. ↑ Jens Semrau: "Considering the simplicity of this great, unforgettable woman." The Kollwitz memorial by Gustav Seitz. In: Kathleen Krenzlin (ed.): Käthe Kollwitz and Berlin. A search for clues. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-422-07424-8 , pp. 233–241, here 236.
  4. ↑ a b Jens Semrau: "Considering the simplicity of this great, unforgettable woman." The Kollwitz memorial by Gustav Seitz. In: Kathleen Krenzlin (ed.): Käthe Kollwitz and Berlin. A search for clues. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-422-07424-8 , pp. 233–241, here 239–240.
  5. ↑ a b Joist Grolle: Gustav Seitz. A sculptor between East and West . Ellert & Richter, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8319-0401-3 , pp. 72 .
  6. ↑ Cf. Jens Semrau: "Considering the simplicity of this great, unforgettable woman." The Kollwitz memorial by Gustav Seitz. In: Kathleen Krenzlin (ed.): Käthe Kollwitz and Berlin. A search for clues. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-422-07424-8 .
  7. ↑ Information on affixing the plaque and on Gustav Seitz; Retrieved March 11, 2010
  8. ↑ The statement “Installation: Autumn 1960” on the monument base attached in 1999 is incorrect. Compare: Jens Semrau, p. 240. The author refers to reports from the BZ am Abend (October 12, 1961) and Neue Zeit (October 13, 1961).
  9. ↑ Gustav Seitz. His Kollwitz now also in Trebnitz. In: Berliner Zeitung v. 08/25/2015; accessed on August 25, 2018
  10. ↑ www.gustav-seitz-museum.de; accessed on August 25, 2018
  11. ↑ Bernd Schälicke: The Käthe Kollwitz monument in Trebnitz, Leporello. Download from www.gustav-seitz-museum.de; accessed on August 25, 2018